The Wii U is now available to buy in North America, with Nintendo having released its new home games console — the first of the next-gen machines — last weekend. By the end of the year the Wii U will have been released in all the major territories. The initial launch didn’t go particularly smoothly, with a sizable firmware update being required to add online functionality.

Despite this, and some other complaints from early-adopters, the reviews of the hardware have been mostly positive. Many reviewers seem to be hedging their bets, stating that the Wii U is good but not as good as it could be and perhaps will be in the future. But what do you think? That’s the subject up for discussion in this week’s We Ask You column.

This Week’s Question…

What Do You Think Of The Nintendo Wii U?

As previously stated the reviews for the Wii U have been mostly positive, but part of me wonders whether these reviewers are afraid of being burned twice by Nintendo’s ability to disrupt the industry. After all, many experts and analysts were highly critical of the original Wii, declaring it as a novelty doomed to fail. They were wrong. As sales quickly boomed, and Sony and Microsoft then tried to play catch-up with Move and Kinect respectively.

The Wii was a huge success. Nintendo took a massive gamble in eschewing high-end visuals in order to focus on the gameplay experience. And the motion control system worked so well that the Wii won the last-/current-gen console war. Nintendo has taken another massive gamble with the Wii U, this time augmenting the motion control Wii Remotes6 Crazy, Interesting Or Useful Ways To Use a WiiMote6 Crazy, Interesting Or Useful Ways To Use a WiiMoteWhen Nintendo released the WiiMote, it was arguably a console industry game changer. The concept of interacting with a game using your physical body was born. Lifelike motion controls enabled it to appeal to a...Read More with a tablet-style controller that adds a second (handheld) screen to the set-up.

Do you think this is a strategy that can work? Will lightning strike in the same place twice and enable the Wii U to match or even surpass the success of its predecessor? Is the Wii U lacking the simplicity that was the quintessential reason why the original Wii succeeded? Will Nintendo be able to build up a big enough lead in terms of sales before successors to the PS3 and Xbox 360 arrive in (probablyWhy Next-Generation Games Consoles Can Wait [Opinion]Why Next-Generation Games Consoles Can Wait [Opinion]The current generation of home games consoles - the Wii, the PS3, and the Xbox 360 - have all been with us for some time. This seventh-generation began in 2005 with the release of the...Read More) 2013?

Drawing Conclusions

All comments will be digested to form conclusions in a follow-up post next week where we will detail what You Told Us. One reader will even win Comment Of The Week, which will be included in the follow-up post! What more motivation than that do you need to respond?

We Ask You is a weekly column dedicated to finding out the opinions of MakeUseOf readers. The questions asked are usually open-ended and likely to start a conversation. Some are opinion-based, while others see you sharing tips and advice, or advocating tools and apps to fellow MakeUseOf Readers. This column is nothing without you, as MakeUseOf is nothing without you.

I think it will be a success... but I won't buy one. I'm not a kid, play instead of watch TV, and have no interest in taking games with me or utilizing the pad.

Here's why I like to play and why I probably won't like the Wii U: I play games to immerse myself in another world and let my senses take over. This is what I feel Hardcore gamers want. Non Hardcore gamers like to be social and may like the interactive nature of the Wii U and motion accessories. I like the new functionality of a tablet, and own a Wii, but the Wii only is used when company is over, and got replaced by the Move, which is much better IMO because you get accurate motion AND graphics.

I think it was Nintendo's smart move, but will never get gamers that want to get lost in a game where visuals and augmented reality are the experience. That's what the big boys are for.

As for Zelda, yea it used to be great, but come on, it's been obsolete for years, childish, lame and cheesy to the point where I don't buy them anymore and wouldn't go out and buy a new Wii U just to play it. Gotta do better, a lot better.

If you want to enhance the HC gamer experience, make dual TV support and add another TV. This will capture PC gamers as well. I use two monitors on my computer for multitasking, why couldn't game consoles do it too?

I still have to have my x box. nintendo seems to me to be for the young children. I had all the nintendo consoles while growing up but then the games got to be very boring for me, so i am now a happy owner of the x-box.

I generally think the Wii U is going to be a successful console. We do not know if it would win the next round of the 'console wars', but I think it has already justified its existence in the face of smartphones and tablets.

Nintendo has a lot of things going on in the console that's pushing back the disruption by mobile devices. I would not be surprised if a year or two down the line, more US households will have Wii Us than tablets or smartphones.

Brave prediction, I know, but looking at actual smartphone household penetration, costs of acquiring smartphones (including investing in ecosystem) as well as details of smartphone wars vs console ways, I think this really is a likely scenario.

I'm not going to comment on whether it will succeed or fail as a console, but there are several aspects of the release I think have been handled wrongly.

Firstly, from my understanding, Nintendo is trying to get back into the hardcore market.
From the fact that they kept their specs very quiet, and from articles like this ( http://www.eurogamer.net/articles/2012-08-30-how-powerful-is-the-wii-u-really ), it seems the specs can just about beat the specs of the current generation hardcore consoles.
This doesn't bode well considering that the current generation is on it's way out.
I know that specs don't mean everything, but a lot of gamers believe they do.

Another thing is that they are making a standard game controller, which makes a lot of sense and I'm happy to see. But they got the name wrong. By calling it the "Pro" pad, they are essentially saying that the pad controller and the standard wii controller are for casual games or novelty use.

Where the Wii struggles is attracting the hardcore developers. Since there isn't yet the optimisations to the console and game engines that current generation consoles have, I think the Wii-U will still have a hard time attracting serious games.

As a console in general, they released it at the right time. Right before Christmas and at least a year before it has any competition. But unless it gets the good games fast, it'll be ignored by the hardcore gamers and their lead will only mean a financial success.

Although it may be a year until any competition arrives, it could be just a few months until Sony and Microsoft announce their next consoles. I suspect both are merely waiting out the holiday season so as not to put anyone off buying the PS3 or Xbox 360. Once the new consoles are announced Nintendo could struggle to sell the Wii U to the hardcore.

I think Nintendo is trying to do too much. They yearn for the days when they were a contender in the hardcore market, but that was a long time ago. They can't risk selling two different consoles, so they try to force a "hardcore" market into their existing console. They are walking the line between cheap and fun for their current market, and the power and features of a new market. It's never going to stand up to the hardcore-first of the contenders.

The console is very different, requiring many peripherals and consume more power. Also the gamepad size is huge compared to other handheld systems available. There's no major changes besides the additional format layout and functionality.

I'm not getting into console war. I don't care what kind of console they release, as long as there are good games accompanying. Wii U might succeed, especially when they're campaigning 'social gaming' which has been a hype for years now. People see PS3 and XBOX for more serious gamer while Wii has gained the reputation for being family friendly.
It's like the chicken and egg problem. Gamer will be attracted to good games. Developer will make more games if the console succeeds.

I agree Nintendo took a different path and made it lined in gold... can they do it again? Only time will tell, but this is kinda like the psp branchoff playstation did ... I hope it does well but I couldn't afford to support it... yet. Kinda between jobs now... hopefully I'll find one soon.